Three adventure enthusiasts talk to Iknoor Kaur about their thrilling, emotional and spine-chilling experiences
Nobody can explain that feeling when he runs 100 miles, climbs a peak or faces a tiger, because it’s mixed and speechless. However, to give a glimpse into this riveting world, six enthusiasts from all across the globe shared their stories during the third session of Adventure Stories presented by Taj Safaris. Mountaineer Conrad Anker, Sherpas Cinema director Dave Mossop, ultra-marathon runner Nikki Kimball, Alpinist Marc Batard, India’s first lady naturalist Ratna Singh and skydiver Jokke Sommer came together recently and shared their once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
Call of the wild
When Ratna Singh was a child, her parents brought up two orphaned leopard cubs, horses, dogs and a tiny field mouse. She grew up near the Bahadurgarh National Park with a rattle snake in her house and watched several abandoned and injured animals find refuge at her home. Therefore becoming a naturalist was like an obvious choice for her. Known as the first Indian lady naturalist, Singh is called ‘Sir’ in the jungle. “There have been lady researchers but not guides driving around the jungle. I started guiding in 2006 and people in the forest never knew how to treat me. At first they wouldn’t even look at me because they had never even seen a woman drive. But now I get treated like a man so it feels nice,” she shared.
In the past nine years, Singh’s had a lot of spine-chilling experiences. “Once, in the national park, there was a tiger that had come out and was sitting on a ledge few feet away from us. There were other vehicles, too, looking at the tiger and it was time for the park to close. So we just had a few minutes more and I was going to reverse and leave this tiger alone. But I had a flat tyre. We couldn’t have stayed there so I had to change my tyre. The tiger was far off and I, along with the guide sent by the national park, were taking off the wheel and not more than 10 feet away from us there was another tiger. The wheel was off and we were on ground. We just stood rooted to the spot and the tiger passed us. There was no other vehicle there. Now the tiger that was there already was a young male and this one who just came was a dominant male. So once the tiger passed us, we got into the vehicle for safety and watched a territorial fight between the two tigers,” she said.
Another experience was more strange than thrilling. “I was with an elderly couple in the park, in a rocky area. We were circling the porch because I’ve seen leopards in that area a lot of times. So I stopped a few meters away from a cave and I just pointed to this cave randomly and said, ‘If I was a leopard I’d be in that cave’ and just then a leopard came out of that very cave. It was unbelievable,” she shared.
One experience she had with a leopard almost took the life out of her. “It was past midnight and I was walking back from the guest area to my cottage which was a kilometer away. It was pitch dark and I didn’t have a torch. Mid-way, a leopard jumped in front of me and all I could see was an outline. What I felt then was extreme, primal fear — fear of life. Adrenaline was pumping and blood rushed to my legs as it prepared for flight. But there is one dictum we live by in the forest that whatever happens, don’t run. I wanted to run, but I had to fight the urge. If I would have run, the leopard would have turned into predator mode. They smell fear because the composition of our body odour changes in such situations. I just stood there till I heard a reassuring sound of footsteps on dry leaves. When a big cat is stalking its prey, it doesn’t make any sound on leaves and is very cautious. So I understood that I was safe and once the leopard walked away, I began walking back,” she shared.
With such experiences, Singh is now fearless when it comes to wildlife. However, she said that there is one animal she would never take her chances with — “a crocodile. If you are in water with a crocodile, you are gone. Plus they don’t have any expressions. With mammals you know if they are angry or not,” she said.
On a high
At 18, Marc Batard took to mountaineering, at 23 he became the youngest man to climb 8,000 mts without oxygen and at 37 he shocked the world with his ascent to the Everest in 22 hours 29 minutes without oxygen. Today, his record and his 63-year-old self continue to stand strong. “When I decided to do the ascent to Everest in less than 24 hours, no one believed it was possible. It took me three attempts to succeed. It was a special situation in the eyes of others because in 1988, people could not even believe that this was possible. It was extremely difficult emotionally and physically,” he shared.
Marc added that he could not eat or drink during the entire duration of the ascent. “My normal weight, when I was fit to go on the ascent, was 54 kilos and when I came back from the summit, I weighed 46 kilos. I just couldn’t eat. Three hours before I left base camp, I ate quite well. But because of the nervousness, fear and the emotional state, when I was about to leave, I vomited everything and after that every time I tried to eat or drink, I vomited,” he said. According to him, it was an example of what the human body is capable of.
What he did require was concentration and focus. “I was scared of failing in this project but Everest is not a technically difficult climb,” he informed.
Track record
Be it skiing or ultra-marathon running, Nikki Kimball’s motive in life is to keep moving. That is why when she decides to run over 200 miles in a go, there is usually nothing stopping her. She started running at the age of 33 and is still at it with full determination. While her current goal is to break the men’s record in a 273-mile-long trail from Canada to Vermont via Massachusetts, she only recently gave a heavy lead to the women’s record. “People here don’t have an exposure to very long distance running. When they think of running 100 miles, they think it’s crazy,” she shared.
Nikki’s Canada-Massachusetts-Vermont ultra-marathon was the latest of her runs and she has a lot of stories from that experience. “Almost four days into the run, I had a horrible patch where I didn’t think I could go on. My feet were bleeding with blisters and everything was paining. I broke down, started crying and I wanted to stop. My best friend encouraged me. I did continue, mostly because we were in a place that was very cold and if I had stopped, rescuing me would have been difficult and I would have put my friend at risk of hypothermia. So I kept going and felt a little better after a while. Now most of the runs I do are for charities and coincidentally the day after this break down I came across a girl from the charity I was running for. Seven hours after I wanted to quit and give up, I had this woman thanking me for running and making money for her charity. She told me that 3,000 girls from Vermont were following me online and I started crying. I was going to quit because I had some physical pain which really didn’t matter since I wasn’t in any danger. To quit would have been so selfish,” she elaborated.
Nikki added that her diet keeps her going. “When I’m running I eat high fat and high protein diet with low carbohydrates. Also usually I go five kilos heavy for an event so that I eat my own fat. Anyway, the last day of this run, when I knew I wasn’t going to get the men’s record, I experimented with my diet. I didn’t believe that my diet was the reason I felt good so far. So I switched from my regular protein and fat to carbohydrate and I was miserable. I felt sick and I was not on my fat-burning mode,” she explained.